A method and a device for controlling an internal combustion engine are described in German Patent No. 195 48 278. It describes a method and a device for regulating the pressure in an accumulator of a common rail system (CR system). It is customary in such CR systems to stipulate the time period that the injectors are driven as a function of the fuel quantity to be injected and of the pressure prevailing in the accumulator. The pressure in the accumulator is measured in synchronism with rotational speed. The pressure is regulated within a fixed time grid by sampling the rail pressure, just been measured in synchronism with the speed, in synchronism with time as well.
Furthermore, it is known from German Patent No. 197 35 561 to sample the pressure values in fixed time intervals. In the control of injected fuel quantities, accurate quantity values are derived only when the fuel pressure is known during injection. Imprecise pressure measurements can lead to a quantity error and, thus, to degraded emissions performance of the internal combustion engine.
Given a method and a device for controlling an internal combustion engine, an underlying object of the present invention is to reduce the quantity errors and thereby improve the emissions characteristics of the internal combustion engine.